Dropping in on “The Big One for One Drop”

Was writing yesterday in general terms about watching poker on the tube, then tonight I found myself getting surprisingly absorbed by a couple of hours’ worth of poker TV while watching the finale of the “Big One for One Drop” on ESPN. Have to say I enjoyed the show more than I’d expected I would.

The first hour showed them play down from nine players to three. There would be 13 hands total shown during that first hour, selected from a span of 41 actual hands. From those hands, no less than 12 featured players all in, most often preflop. And in all but one of those hands the all-in was called and a player either doubled or was knocked out.

That hour was actually a little fatiguing to wade through, save the one hand featuring Scott Seiver make a bold all-in shove on the turn with an open-ended straight draw (and king-high) to force Tobias Reinkemeier to fold his pocket aces (an overpair to the board). Here was the hand from PokerNews’ reporting, and here the clip on the ESPN site, if you’re curious.

The hand took over 10 minutes in real time, and they actually took up around eight minutes of the program for it, not counting the gimmicky commercial break stuck in the middle. It was the only all-in bet not called during the first hour, and it was easily a highlight of the entire night.

The second hour began similarly, with a short-stacked Christoph Vogelsang all in three times in the first five hands shown (culled from about 30), finally busting on the last one. Then came what turned out to be a fairly enjoyable rest of the program showing 11 of the 46 heads-up hands between the two Daniels, including some very interesting reads by both players of each other -- some correct, some not.

Negreanu’s big call with K-Q on a 4-8-J-A-4 board against what turned out to be Colman’s full house with A-4 was the most intriguing decision (Hand #103). I remember reading James McManus writing about the “Big One” final table for Bloomberg and mentioning Negreanu had king-queen in the hand, something I hadn’t seen reported elsewhere, and so was intrigued to see that confirmed.

Then the final hand provided some uncanny symmetry with Colman using K-Q to beat Negreanu’s A-4, the latter actually flopping two pair before Colman turned his winning straight.

Poker-wise that heads-up portion of the show was more fun to watch than I’d anticipated it would be, although I think Negreanu had a ton to do with it thanks to both his table talk and the somewhat infectious excitement he was showing right through to the end. (Negreanu’s tweets during the night commenting on hands actually added a lot to the enjoyment, too, I came to realize.)

ESPN’s occasional acknowledgements of Colman’s disinterest in chatting it up with the media were mostly fine, I thought, although the montage of pros commenting on the subject felt more like another excuse to squeeze Phil Hellmuth into a poker show than anything else. Hardly that gripping of a side story, but at least ESPN didn’t go overboard and try to construct a full-blown villain out of such meager materials.

Talk of folks buying pieces wasn’t ignored, with shots of Colman backers Olivier Busquet and Haralabos Voulgaris a fairly frequent reminder, although not a lot of focus was placed upon it. (Then again it never felt as though the millions for which players were vying were all that significant to anyone involved.) Meanwhile references to the One Drop charity and other positive messages about poker came often enough to represent a minor theme for the night.

Like I say, I found myself more engaged by it all than I thought I’d be, especially knowing the outcome, something I wrote about a couple of weeks ago being a big deterrent when it came to viewing. Was still nowhere near as captivating as your average live sporting event, but once I dropped in on the show it nonetheless kept my attention.

Watching Golf, Watching Poker

Got thoroughly caught up in the PGA Championship yesterday. Such high quality play from the leaders at the end, and Rory McIlroy more than proved himself with his comeback, making shot after shot to top that tough field and claim yet another major. Three straight weeks’ worth of wins by McIlroy is pretty incredible, too -- perhaps slightly more likely than a poker player winning three successive tournaments, but still a very rare feat to pull off.

I’ve written here before about the many similarities between golf and poker, both of which are games that players of wildly differing levels of skill and commitment can enjoy. Amateur golfers like myself can watch pros and still feel somewhat connected with what we are seeing, having ourselves attempted similar shots even if we’re competing on a much lower level. I’m not sure that’s really so much the case, though, with poker. Not currently, anyway.

I was realizing yesterday that when we think back to televised poker’s heyday during the mid-2000s, one of the primary attractions for a lot of us was the fact that we could make a similar connection with what we were watching. Whether it be the WSOP Main Event, the prelims that got some play on ESPN during those couple of years, the WPT, or other poker on TV, many of us watching were players ourselves and without too much effort could readily appreciate similarities between hands we were playing and those we were watching.

It was kind of like one big game then (if that makes sense), with online poker especially helping all of us feel connected in a much more immediate way than is the case today. Even if we didn’t necessarily think “one day that’ll be me” as we watched, we still recognized the games on TV as analogous to what we were doing when we played.

Some of us who continue to tune in and watch televised poker today still think in similar terms as we watch -- that is, we connect somewhat with the players and the game -- but I think the gap between what’s happening on screen and what most of us experience with poker is a lot wider now. Certainly when it’s the “Big One for One Drop” being shown none of us identifies that much with those participating in a $1 million buy-in event. But even in other tourneys I’d venture to say many of us find it hard to relate to what we’re seeing.

During the PGA broadcasts this week they would occasionally show short instructional segments featuring Lou Guzzi, the 2013 PGA Teacher of the Year. That’s a shot of him above, getting set to deliver a quick lesson about how to hit the ball out of a fairway sandtrap. The lesson didn’t seem out of place at all within the context of the coverage. Players could benefit from the instruction, and even non-players might have found it interesting to see the mechanics of such a shot being explained.

I know in televised poker there have been various attempts to introduce strategy discussion into the coverage. In truth, every single hand shown is usually accompanied by some talk along those lines. But I think most of such commentary is received simply as describing the action, not prescribing potential plays we viewers might make. The level of engagement by the viewer just isn’t the same with poker as it is with golf.

I’m discussing this phenomenon as if it isn’t just personal but applies more broadly among most viewers, which could be incorrect. This might just be me. Or what I’m describing might primarily apply to recreational players of both golf and poker (in which categories I put myself in both cases), and not as much to others.

Still, I think for all the similarities between golf and poker, there are some big differences, too, particularly when it comes to trying to make the card game into a game as engaging to watch as golf can be.

Dispensing With the Drama: Watching the “One Drop”

“They really should just dispense with the drama and get to the business of chopping this pot.”

So says Norman Chad during ESPN’s presentation of what was in fact one of the more dramatic hands from this summer’s “Big One for One Drop,” the one from Day 2 that saw Cary Katz eliminate Connor Drinan in a hand in which both players were dealt pocket aces, but Katz won after four hearts appeared among the community cards to give him a flush.

Here’s the hand, already posted on YouTube:

Chad is joking, trying in post-production to add to the surprise a little by suggesting to the audience that the hand would be ending in a split pot as happens almost 96% of the time in such situations.

But watching the hand tonight on ESPN’s “One Drop” coverage, I couldn’t help but think that in fact nearly all of the drama had been dispensed with, despite the unusual outcome of the hand.

Why do I say this? A lot of reasons.

Some drama is removed when we know the players’ hole cards beforehand. The suspense experienced at the time leading up to Drinan’s all-in five-bet and Katz’s instacall is not shared by the viewer whatsoever. We know as soon as we see both players’ hands how the preflop action will end.

Then, of course, for many of us watching, we know how the postflop action will end, too. For us there is no suspense at all about the hand, nor even about its place in the tournament as a whole, resulting in Drinan’s ouster and helping boost Katz somewhat toward what will be an eighth-place finish (just inside the money).

Haralabos Voulgaris opined back when the tournament was playing out that “nobody cares who wins,” which I said then I thought was not entirely untrue. That said, knowing who does win makes it that much harder to care to watch it play out again a month later.

There are other reasons why the drama is diminished for this particular hand, including the lack of backstory regarding either of the two players involved. But even if we had that backstory, that might not have helped add drama either.

Most of the players in the “One Drop” sold significant action, something alluded to in passing in the show. Drinan actually won his seat via a $25,300 satellite, then sold action afterwards to guarantee himself a profit from the tournament regardless of his finish. In other words, he certainly didn’t lose $1 million in the hand (although he did lose the chance to continue onward to play for the millions awaiting those making the final table).

And while Katz and Drinan both show some emotion, that, too, is pretty muted. “If I lose like this, whatever,” says Drinan after the flop brings two hearts to give Katz a freeroll. Then it happens, and even though there is a reaction from the crowd, both players, and observer Antonio Esfandiari saying it’s “so sick,” it’s all still kind of overwhelmingly “whatever.”

I mentioned back when the “One Drop” was playing out how lamentable it was that there was no live stream of the event. Recall how Kevmath fielded endless questions about it, then began referring followers to another Twitter account -- @NoOneDropStream -- with a single tweet delivering the bad news.

The WSOP Main Event coverage will crank up soon, and again the inherent problem of delayed coverage diminishing suspense will be evident. The live presentation of the final table should be compelling, I think, but really I can’t find myself wanting to bother with any of the edited shows in between.

We are more than a decade into this format for televised poker. It’s a format for which the drama was dispensed long, long ago.

Eight Players Chasing Eight Figures

Following them Big One for One Drop updates this evening, where Daniel Negreanu keeps knocking out players and looks as though he’s got a good chance of possibly winning the sucker. If he does -- or if he finishes runner-up, even -- he’ll zoom past Antonio Esfandiari on that mostly-out-of-whack all-time tournament earnings list.

Poor Tom Hall busted right away today, leaving the final eight players to share the $37,333,338 prize pool and gun for the $15,306,668 up top.

With all of the “high rollers” and “super high rollers,” as well as the One Drops and WSOP Main Events, that list has long become a difficult one to parse.

The debates over what the list really signifies have always been around, with the observation that it shouldn’t be mistaken for some kind of unambiguous indicator of poker ability an obvious one. But now there’s a pretty stark division between those in the top two dozen spots or so and the rest, with all of the seven-figure scores (and eight-figure ones in the One Drops) creating a different tier of results.

Kind of reminds me a little of how the statistics in baseball got all screwy during the height of the steriod era in the 1990s, especially with regard to home runs. Even now with the policing of PEDs being much more vigilant, it’s hard to take some of the numbers as seriously anymore or be tempted to pursue hard-to-make comparisons across eras.

Still, I’ll admit to being a little fascinated by all of those millions, even if most of the players are only playing for a tenth of themselves.

Was disappointed at the lack of a live stream for this event -- not the WSOP’s decision, but one dictated by ESPN -- as this event was probably the only one all summer that casual poker fans might have wanted to watch. And while I know ESPN will be packaging the event quickly to start airing an edited version in late July, I can say right now I won’t be all that intrigued to see it then after knowing the outcome.

One Drop Drop

So the second installment of the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop kicked off on Sunday, with 42 taking part.

That’s a smaller field than the first time the event was staged two years ago when they drew 48, thus meaning the $37,333,338 prize pool and the $15,306,668 first prize are both less than what we saw in 2012.

Seems strange to look at figures like those and regard them as thought they are somehow disappointing because they aren’t bigger, but such is the way of comparisons. And hype, too, as it certainly sounded like expectations were they’d be nearing or perhaps even hitting the 56-player cap for the event.

Besides being a smaller field, there are also a higher percentage of pros taking part this time around, as several of the amateur businessmen who played in 2012 likely viewed the event as a kind of one-shot deal and thus aren’t coming back for more. The relative toughness of the field increasing thus certainly prevented a few from playing.

Just glancing over the names of those involved, there only appear to be five or six who are not full-time pros with most of the others being part of the same group we’ve seen routinely taking part in the “high roller” and “super high roller” events over the last three-plus years.

Thomas Keeling (SrslySirius) interviewed Phil Hellmuth for BLUFF who sounded as though he was going to play, but was too slow to get his backing in order by the time late registration ended. Meanwhile Frank Op de Woerd spoke with Haralabos Voulgaris -- another of those who played the One Drop in 2012 but decided not to this time around -- and he provided some insight regarding why others might have chosen not to play this time.

As he’s bought significant pieces of several players, Voulgaris obviously has an interest in seeing who makes the final eight to cash and who wins the event. But he was noting on Twitter yesterday how in truth “nobody cares who wins,” which I think on one level is probably true, even if the poker world will get increasingly curious about how it concludes once they get to a final table tomorrow.

That is to say, while the charity element is of course significant, the spectacle is all. And as with most sequels, there’s necessarily going to be a decrease in the impact earlier enjoyed by the novelty of such an event.

I’ll still be following along though.

Another Big One for One Drop

Among the news items today is word regarding the upcoming second installment of the “Big One for One Drop,” the $1 million buy-in bracelet event at the World Series of Poker. A list of additional players planning to participate this time around was announced, thereby putting the highest of high rollers on the radar again for a short while with the start of this year’s WSOP just a couple of weeks away.

The event debuted in 2012 and I remember getting the chance to help a little with the coverage of it, then watching the finale and marveling like everyone else at the spectacle of Antonio Esfandiari winning $18,346,673 playing cards (even if he only in reality won around 15% of that for himself).

There were 48 entries in the event two years ago, creating a total prize pool of $42,666,672 (and forever throwing the “all-time money list” for tournament poker permanently out of whack). With this week’s news the “Big One” this year has 33 players confirmed to play, with a cap of 56 in place. If they make it to the cap, the prize pool will edge up very close to $50 million, I believe, with the first-place prize exceeding Esfandiari’s from two years ago.

The 26 identified players who have now confirmed to play are Max Altergott, Bobby Baldwin, Jean-Robert Bellande, David Einhorn, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Galfond, Tony Gregg, Philipp Gruissem, Niklas Heinecker, Phil Ivey, Igor Kurganov, Guy Laliberté, Jason Mercier, Paul Newey, Bill Perkins, Fabian Quoss, Vivek Rajkumar, Brian Rast, Tobias Reinkemeier, Andrew Robl, Noah Schwartz, Erik Seidel, Vanessa Selbst, Brandon Steven, Sam Trickett, and Christoph Vogelsang.

Three more seats will be occupied by satellite winners, and four others have committed as well to bring the current total to 33. The latter four are currently being identified only as “anonymous businessmen,” with the one added this week further described as Asian.

The three-day event begins June 29 and will surely create some buzz, although perhaps not as intensely as was the case the first time around. There will be increased television coverage on ESPN, however, with three weeks and six hours of programming devoted to it to be shown during the latter half of July, which will help push the story of the event and whoever wins it a bit further into the mainstream.

We’ve already become so accustomed to the “super high rollers” with $100K and $250K buy-ins, though, with the re-entry format being adopted for some having created conditions wherein individuals’ buy-ins have actually gotten closer to that $1 million mark.

One wonders if two years from now a $1 million buy-in event is going to be enough to raise eyebrows anymore. Or if the adjective “big” is going to be enough.

2013 WSOP, Day 32: Heaps of Headlines

A lot happening at the Rio right now, with the WSOP Main Event now less than a week away. Last night I was busy with the last day of Event No. 50, the $2,500 10-Game Mix, and while I was locked in there I was still aware of lots else going on as well.

Event No. 50 rapidly whittled down from 20 returners to a final table of six -- faster than we’d anticipated, in fact. Once we reached that stage, my blogging partner Josh and I had a decision to make.

PokerNews has been doing hand-for-hand coverage at most hold’em and Omaha final tables this summer, though have not done so for non-flop games (e.g., stud and draw variants). For the 10-game mix we had a choice, then, how to approach the reporting, and we decided to do what might be called “round-for-round” coverage of the action.

We knew reporting hand-for-hand was neither feasible nor really desirable, with the stud games in particular being too involved to accommodate that sort of reporting. But we also wanted to try to give a somewhat comprehensive report on how the final table was evolving through the various games. So we each took turns reporting on the six-hand rounds of a given game, providing successive “round reports” that highlighted the biggest hands of each six-hand sequence while updating chip counts frequently.

I liked how it all turned out, and if you read through it all you can see how Brandon Wong eventually moved from the middle to the front, then maintained his advantage to the end including through heads-up play with Sebastian Saffari.

Was kind of funny at first as I had initially drawn PLO, NLHE, and other “easier” games to cover while Josh kept getting stud/8, Badugi, and the like. But after one cycle through the 10 games we found a way to switch off after a bustout so we each ended up reporting on all 10 of the games more than once during the nearly seven-hour final table (including a one-hour break for dinner).

A couple of U.K. players finished in the top three (Saffari and Philip Sternheimer), with the American Wong ultimately prevailing. Had a boisterous rail of supporters at the secondary feature table, too, most of whom were there for Saffari. However, the real “British rail” was next door whooping it up in the mothership over Barny Boatman’s win in Event No. 49, a $1,500 NLHE event.

Boatman, of course, is one of the original “Hendon Mob” along with his younger brother, Ross, Ram Vaswani, and Joe Beevers, a group of Londoners who became early pioneers when it came to getting sponsorships for poker players while also founding the famous forum and what has become a vital database of tourney results. The Mob’s story gets covered somewhat in Victoria Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker (reviewed here).

Lots of joy being expressed in and around the mothership last night at Boatman’s triumph, as well as over Twitter where I’ve already seen dozens of congratulatory tweets aimed toward Boatman. The 58-year-old topped a field of 2,247 to win his first bracelet and a $546,080 first prize.

Indeed, when it came to Day 32 of the 2013 World Series of Poker, the 10-game mix finishing up probably ended up below the fold (so to speak) as there were at least three other more attention-grabbing stories unfolding. Boatman’s win was one. The completion of Event No. 47, the $111,111 buy-in One Drop High Rollers NLHE event was another. And the continued playing out of Event No. 51, the $10,000 Ladies NLHE Championship (with a $9,000 discount for women) was a third.

To be honest, the One Drop High Rollers event barely registered with me these last few days, as I wasn’t assigned to it and thus couldn’t really follow it that much.

I know the turnout of 166 players well exceeded expectations and made it necessary for the event to spill over into a fourth day of play. Antonio Esfandiari appeared primed at one point to follow his Big One for One Drop win from a year ago with another in this one, but fell in fourth. It was interesting to see businessman Bill Perkins break through to take third and notch a big cash in one of these, too.

In the end Anthony Gregg outlasted Chris Klodnicki to take the title and more than $4.8 million first prize, thus again disproportionately throwing out of whack all comparisons when it comes to the bracelet events, their prizes, and their significance. Klodnicki, by the way, has racked up close to $4 million the last two summers at the WSOP without even winning a bracelet. He won $2,985,495 last night after winning nearly $900K for finishing second in the $50K Poker Players Championship to Michael Mizrachi a year ago.

I suppose from the outside it just felt like another “high roller” event on the schedule, kind of a specialty tourney reserved only for a certain percentage of players at a given festival that have grown increasingly common over the last three years.

Meanwhile, I did get to witness a bit of Day 2 of the Ladies event as it was playing out nearby mine. In fact, on my break I even helped out those reporting on it a little, catching a couple of hands during the rapid sequence of bustouts that found that event reach a final table even before the scheduled end of play for the day.

The $10K buy-in for men did its job, apparently, as after three straight years of a handful of men playing in the event there were none among the 954 who registered this time around. That result helped support what seems like a commonly-held view now that the “ladies discount” idea was probably a good one.

I chatted briefly with WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla yesterday, and at one point in our conversation I noted how no men had played in the Ladies tourney this year. “You won’t have any stories to write,” said Dalla to me, and I nodded. Afterwards I thought how I was kind of tired of writing that story, anyway, and was glad I didn’t have to this time.

Barbara Enright was among those cashing in the Ladies event yesterday, finishing 25th. The Poker Hall of Famer won the Ladies event in both 1986 and 1994 (when it was a seven-card stud tournament), won a bracelet in an open event in 1996 (pot-limit hold’em), and is, of course, the only woman ever to make a WSOP Main Event final table, having finished fifth in 1995.

Also cashing yesterday was Danielle “dmoongirl” Andersen who finished 44th. Andersen is one of the three principal figures featured in the documentary BET RAISE FOLD: The Story of Online Poker, which happens to be having its official release today.

I had a chance to view the film earlier this month, and wrote a review of it for Flushdraw a week ago. I enjoyed it very much, and appreciate the way director Ryan Firpo and his cohorts presented the world of online poker and in particular the experiences of those who have managed to make careers out of playing online.

I actually spoke at length with Firpo at one point over a year ago about the project, in particular about poker’s significant place in American culture. That point that is made early in the film with people like Dr. Pauly, Dalla, David Schwartz, and Jesse May among those helping with the explanation. So even though I’m not really directly involved in the film, I’m still kind of excited for Firpo and the others who are.

As my review points out, the film ultimately becomes more of an extended profile of Andersen and the two other players featured, Tony Dunst and Martin Bradstreet, than a full-blown history of online poker. I say that because there are certain elements of that story that are left to the side, most conspicuously the insider cheating scandals at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet that had wide-ranging effects on the industry as a whole (neither mentioned in the film).

I think the film is successful in many ways, though, and spell out a few of them in the review. Andersen’s story is the most interesting, of course, getting the most attention during the film’s running time.

Incidentally, last Sunday morning I finished the last edits on my review and after it was posted I went to the Rio to get ready for a day of work. I was climbing the steps in back when I looked up to see Andersen sitting there with her smart phone as she waited to play an event that day.

I introduced myself and told her how I’d just reviewed BET RAISE FOLD and she already knew about it as someone had messaged her. Was kind of uncanny to run into her at that moment after having been watching and thinking about the movie for the previous several hours and days. She was very nice and told me a little about the whirlwind she’s experienced as the center of attention of a film of such particular interest to everyone at the WSOP.

Like I say, the film is being officially “released” today insofar as it will become available online some time this morning, so check out the BET RAISE FOLD site for information about ordering.

I’m back at the Rio later this afternoon for more mixed-game fun as I’m helping with Day 1 of Event No. 55, the $50,000 Poker Players Championship. Just eight games to deal with in that one, with Badugi and 2-7 NL Draw omitted from the mix.

The $50K event was first introduced as a H.O.R.S.E. event in 2006, subsequently being dubbed the “Poker Players Championship” and awarding a trophy in memory of the first winner, David “Chip” Reese, who died in 2007. Here are the winners, first prizes, and entrants for the first seven of them:

With everything else going on – including the final days of both the Ladies event and the $25K NLHE 6-max. -- the $50K getting started probably won’t make it “above the fold” either for the day. Should feature all the big names, though, and again I’ll be curious to see what the turnout ends up being, especially coming right on the heels of that One Drop High Roller.

Click on over to PokerNews’ live reporting today to follow it all.

2012 WSOP, Day 38: $18,346,673

“Who’s ahead?”

I looked back over my left shoulder. Ty Stewart, Executive Director of the World Series of Poker, was asking about the hand in progress, what would turn out to be the decisive hand of the biggest poker tournament ever held.

“Esfandiari,” I answered. He leaned forward to see the cards on the screen above the table below a little better.

Timmy, the dealer, had spread the flop . I had only just arrived a couple of minutes before Stewart, having been back in my room watching the “almost live” (or “moments ago”) coverage on ESPN of the final table of Event No. 55, the $1,000,000 buy-in “Big One for One Drop.”

Finally enjoying a day off, I had spent some of it away from the Rio relaxing a little and getting other work done, then had been in earlier in the afternoon to do an interview about WSOP history (and other topics) with Tatjana Pasalic. (I believe some videos including segments with me and Nolan Dalla will be appearing over on the Calvin Ayre site shortly, if you’re curious to see those.)

I’d briefly been in the Amazon before and after the interview to watch some of the final table at that time, then had gone back to the room and watched until Esfandiari and Sam Trickett had reached heads-up.

The stacks were fairly deep at that point. Esfandiari had a more than 2-to-1 chip lead to start heads-up play with better than 102 million to Trickett’s 41.5 million. The blinds were 400k/800k, though, meaning Trickett still had more than 50 big blinds. The sucker could end at any moment, of course, but I figured there was a chance it might go on a while, and so decided to drive back over to the Rio and see if perhaps I could get there to witness the end in person.

My timing turned out perfectly. What ESPN was showing was on a 15-minute delay, and I left right as the first hand between Esfandiari and Trickett was being dealt.

About 15 minutes later I was standing there in the media tower, watching Trickett check-raising that flop and Esfandiari coming back over the top. Trickett was in the tank for a short while before announcing that he was reraising again to 15 million. That’s when Esfandiari quickly pushed all in and Trickett called.

We were already standing in the media tower, watching as everyone else sitting in the “mothership” suddenly rose to their feet at Trickett’s call. The cards were turned over and pushed forward near the flop so they could be seen on the screens up above. Esfandiari held -- he’d flopped trip fives. Meanwhile Trickett had for a flush draw. That’s when Stewart asked who was leading.

“This could be it,” said Stewart, and we all leaned forward to watch Timmy deal the turn and river.

Timmy is one of the better dealers at the WSOP, a guy I’ve seen and talked to for several summers. He’s dealt lots of big hands at the WSOP, although none with so much on the line in terms of prize money before. No one had.

I had stopped in on the Big One on Day 2 during a break when they were down to two tables. Timmy was practicing dealing flops (see pic). He was joking about how he was so “OCD” that he couldn’t resist nudging the community cards to make them perfectly even after spreading a flop.

“I’ll bet out of 100,000 flops I’ve only left one alone,” he said. The dealer at the other table joked that Timmy even turns the aces around so they appear right side up when he deals. He doesn’t do that, but he is obviously a bit of a perfectionist, a trait that no doubt helped make him one of those chosen to deal at this prestigious final table.

I squinted to see the flop again, noting how the cards were perfectly even. Then I watched as Timmy rapped the table, burned a card, and carefully slid the turn card into place beside the first three.

A slow rumble began to build during the several seconds that passed before Timmy again hit the table, burned a card, and turned over fifth street... the .

Esfandiari began to run around in a circle, hands on his head, and about two dozen friends and family rushed forward to surround him. The arena lights began flashing on and off, and soon Esfandiari was up on the group’s shoulders.

As the scene settled, the CEO of Caesars Interactive Entertainment Mitch Garber came out to award Esfandiari the bracelet and first prize, which he noted was the “greatest... in all of sports.” Esfandiari immediately motioned for his father to come forward, saying how he was giving the bracelet to him.

I remembered Esfandiari’s Dad from last summer when I’d covered an event in which Antonio had final tabled and he had been there. He had a big grin on his face then, and it was even bigger now.

Kara Scott then briefly interviewed Esfandiari as we all stood in silence. Their words weren’t broadcast over the public address, and so we couldn’t hear them. I noticed Esfandiari was barefoot as he responded to Scott’s questions. A little later he’d slip back on the flip flops he’d been wearing, which along with his green hoody contrasted severely with the setting and situation.

Soon pictures were being taken of Esfandiari hugging the mountain of cash sitting before the table, such as that one to the left snapped by Joe Giron (WSOP). Earlier in the afternoon, Jess Welman had characterized the stacks of cash bricks as looking like a fireplace, which it did, and I’d said they couldn’t possibly have put it on the table as it would collapse under its weight.

As those pictures were being snapped, we speculated in the media tower about how it was not really $18,346,673 sitting there on the stage. Nor was Esfandiari really winning that amount, either. Someone sounding as though he was in the know suggested Esfandiari had only 17% of himself, and we all nodded.

More interviews followed, but I noted Esfandiari taking a moment to shake hands with the dealers -- Timmy and Shaun -- standing off to the side. I’d joke with Rich afterwards that Esfandiari was right to shake their hands, since besides playing well, he’d been dealt some nice cards, too, at that final table.

I then saw Timmy with his phone out snapping photos just like all the rest of us were. Was a special moment, one that seemed worth chronicling. Indeed, I think those of us snapping photos weren’t so much doing it to have our own pictures. Other, better photos were being taken all around by Joe and others.

Rather, I think some of us were taking them just to prove we were there, too.

I left soon thereafter, thinking of that “All-Time Money List,” a list that had already been thrown all out of whack some time ago when all of those “super high roller” events began to happen.

And how when someone now asks “Who’s ahead?” there the answer is also “Esfandiari.”

At least until the next million-dollar tournament.

2012 WSOP, Day 37: Wake Up

“You look tired.”

So said a smiling Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh to me as I made yet another circuit around the Brasilia room last night, passing in and out of tables in search of hands, stories, big chip stacks, and so on.

“No, no... I’m wide awake!” I replied, eyes wide and grinning back. She laughed and suggested one of those 5-hour energy drinks, and I nodded and continued with my rounds.

Leigh was playing in Event No. 56, the $1,500 no-limit hold’em event, a tourney I was essentially reporting on by myself yesterday. Again, Brett came around for a few hours in the middle, but it was basically up to me for most of the day to figure out how to report on the nearly 2,800 players spread out all over the Brasilia, Amazon, and Pavilion rooms.

The day began at noon and went until about 1:30 a.m. It was sometime after midnight Leigh correctly pegged me as starting to run low, energy-wise. It was my sixth straight day of working, and 11th out of 12. The shortest day has been about 11 hours, and the longest 15 or 16.

So yeah, I’m tired. But I survived. So did Leigh in the tourney, as did my buddies Rich and Ducky, which I was glad to see.

Things look different today, though, with a day off (at last) and a chance to recharge. I will be heading into the Rio later in the day to check out the finale of Event No. 55, the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop, the eight-handed final table for which is kicking off right about now.

It was during a break last night that I happened to have walked over to see the Russian businessman Ilya Bulychev eliminated in 10th place to go out on the biggest friggin' bubble ever. Zero for 10th, and $1,109,333 for ninth (where Mike Sexton would finish shortly after).

In fact, I’m sitting in my room right now watching the “almost live” coverage of the final table (with hole cards at showdown) kicking off on ESPN2. Kind of uncanny to watch, after just being there... and planning to go back over later. And to think... $18,346,673 for the winner.

Sort of thing wakes a person up.

2012 WSOP, Day 36: Same But Different

Experienced kind of an interesting contrast yesterday, my day at the WSOP being evenly divided between finishing up reporting on Event No. 51, the $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship, then moving over to help the guys with Event No. 55, the $1,000,000 Big One for One Drop. Both events featured the same game, of course. But they couldn’t have been more different.

The final table of the ladies event began with a big crowd, but when four of the final nine players busted within the first couple of hours, their supporters left with them, necessarily affecting the ambience. Each of the remaining players had a few people there to cheer her on, but the scene was mostly quite serene and low key.

The woman who won, a former law student named Yen Dang, had distinguished herself yesterday as one of the better players, and she probably was the one of the best two or three at the final table, so her winning wasn’t too surprising.

As things concluded relatively early (I was essentially finished by about 7 p.m.), Donnie asked if I could come over and help with the Big One for One Drop for a few hours, and even though I could’ve used a few extra hours of rest, I went on over. Too curious not to, I’ll admit.

Incidentally, as I was packing up to move from my perch on the Pavilion stage, another group of players were being seated there for a different final table, the one for Event No. 52, the $2,500 short-handed 10-game mix event.

I spied Vanessa Selbst among those assembling to finish out that one, and knew she had a chip lead with seven left. Found out later she’d won the sucker, ending that streak of women not winning “open” events that extended back to her own win in 2008.

Two bracelets also puts her in rare company among female players, too, although again, like with Dang among her opponents in the ladies event, it’s never surprising to me to see Selbst win. When I was on the Keep Flopping Aces podcast a few weeks ago and Lou Krieger asked me about players to watch this summer, I’d mentioned her as one who always seems capable of winning any event she enters.

But like I say, I was out of there before they’d started up the 10-game, having moved over to join the group covering the Big One. I’d seen the main stage earlier in the day (pictured above) while also having toured the set they’d constructed for the five secondary tables, too. Rows of bleachers has been put in along with extra lighting and all the means for ESPN to shoot the event for later broadcast.

There was even a small buffet of finger foods, drinks, fruits, teas, and so forth set up for the players, the sort of amenities that seemed appropriate for an event with such an outrageous buy-in. WSOP staff and others associated with the television production and live stream had dressed up, although the players were all essentially wearing the same varied garb they always do, as did we reporters.

That said, the overall vibe wasn’t super intense, I suppose because it was still Day 1 and most players still had comfortably deep chip stacks. I happened to see and report on several interesting hands, including arriving just in time to catch Jonathan Duhamel’s bustout.

Witnessed another interesting hand involving Chamath Palihapitiya, the venture capitalist and former Facebook VP, and Phil Hellmuth which concluded with some semi-serious back-and-forthing between the two, with Palihapitiya firing back with the trash talking. Palihapitiya made a deep run in the Main Event last year, I remembered, finishing 101st.

Also saw Tom Dwan nearly eliminated by John Morgan, the Winmark CEO, after getting his chips in ahead, suffering an unlucky turn, then spiking a lucky river. By the way, you might have heard about a hand earlier in the day (before I got there) in which Morgan was involved in which the player to his left, Mikhail Smirnov, actually folded quads after Morgan shoved the river and a straight flush was possible.

Anyhow, I will say the poker was mighty intriguing to watch, with the various non-pros or amateurs or “businessmen” or “whales” or whatever you want to call them frequently giving away their relative lack of savvy or experience compared to the pros, although in many cases holding their own. In fact, of the 11 who busted yesterday, nine were pros -- although it’ll be much more meaningful to see who busts at the end, not the beginning.

Gus Hansen had a brick of $50,000 in cash (I think) sitting by his side throughout the night. Also saw Tom Marchese pitch to Ben Lamb what I believe was a banded-together, thick wad of hundreds adding up $10K when a prop bet between them had been settled. As I was joking with someone earlier in the day, in some ways these guys are about seven or eight levels removed from where most of us can even pretend to relate to them.

Will be moving back over to a much different event today, the last of the $1,500 buy-in NLHE tourneys on the schedule (Event No. 56), before finally getting a day off on Tuesday. Expect I might be back over at the Rio then, though, to see the end of this Big One and the sheer spectacle of someone winning over $18 million in a poker tournament. Kind of feels like the poker world can’t possibly be the same after something like that happens.

Again, I know full well there will be no relating to that. But I am curious to experience watching it. And then I’ll try to relate that here.